An entity, such as a financial institution, can have multiple call centers at which there are numerous customer service and other types of agents that take inbound calls. Typically, customers of the entity reach the call centers by dialing an 800 number for customer service. Although some customers may have other reasons for calling the call centers, customer service is the main reason for calling them. All of those calls go first to an automated answering system known as a network interactive voice response (NIVR) system, and out of that system, a customer needs to speak to a live agent. The customers' calls are then routed to one of many sites maintained by the entity.
For example, customer service calls may be routed to one of ten or more different sites spread out all over the country. Each of those sites has a call management system (CMS) that is coupled very closely with the private branch exchange (PBX) system for the particular site. The CMS constantly gathers real time information about the number of calls that have been received and the number of calls that are presently in queue. The CMS also collects information about the individual agents, so it is possible to see, for example, the number of agents that are currently logged in, their average time to handle a call, the average length of a call, and the like.
The CMS itself provides both real-time and historical reporting, but it is limited to the particular PBX system to which it is connected. There may be some variation in how different sites use CMS and how it is connected to the sites' PBXs. For example, at some sites there may be one CMS per PBX, and at other sites there can be one CMS and many PBX's. By and large, however, with multiple sites (e.g., ten or more sites), it is not feasible to have a single CMS connected to all of those sites' PBX systems. Thus, it is not presently practical for management of an entity with multiple call centers, which needs to know how the entity is performing as far as how well customers' calls are being handled, to view a single screen to see the status of all of the entity's call centers at one time.
While an entity with only one call center may be able to use CMS to monitor the status of the particular call center on a single screen, it would be necessary for management of an entity with multiple different call centers, for example, to log in separately to each one of multiple different CMS's and attempt to have multiple different windows open on their screen at once and refer back and forth between the screen to observe the status of all the different call centers, but with no way to integrate the information on the different windows.
A similar situation has existed with another source system used by management of an entity to monitor its call centers, an example of which is eWorkforce Management available from Aspect, referred to herein as “TCS” or “the TCS system”. TCS provides a prediction or forecasting type of information regarding the performance of the entity's call centers. TCS is used for forecasts, such as the number of calls that will be received at a particular call center on a particular day and thus the number of agents which should be scheduled by the entity to work on the particular day, and similar forecasts for management of the entity.